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May 13, 2025 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 13 May 2025

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General Debate

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Scott

Very good news this morning, the last American hostage, Edan Alexander, has been freed by Hamas and has crossed over safely to Israel.

I’m struck by how little coverage the American hostages got in the American media? Was it because it would reflect badly on the wider Palestinian cause or maybe the Jews are not very fashionable at the moment? It’s hard to understand that American journalists don’t seem very exercised about American hostages, a story that you would think would be of very great interest to the American public?

Secondly the story reflects well on president Trump, which may explain the lack of media interest?

– “President Donald Trump’s visit to the Middle East begins on Tuesday – he calls Alexander’s scheduled release “great news”
– A senior Palestinian official tells the BBC the Hamas announcement is intended as a goodwill gesture before Trump’s arrival”

https://www.bbc.com/news/live/c30qlp9qyq1t

It seems that the renewal of the war in Gaza plus not allowing supplies into Gaza has put pressure on Hamas. In my mind the war and the blockade should continue until Hamas frees all the hostages and surrenders. That’s how wars are fought and won.

But Trump is doing what he said he’d do. This is good news, and with the news of trade deals being signed, he’s getting it done. 😎
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May 13, 2025 8:01am
- Scott
  
  More good news. Edan Alexander has been reunited with his family. 😊
  
  https://www.instagram.com/p/DJkKqeRxbFB/?igsh=NmxyZHFkaTU2bWw2
  
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  May 13, 2025 9:48am
- RoboRob
  
  I think the US hostages got no coverage becuase Joe Biden was president and becuase the US media (generally) are a democrat tool. Joe wasn’t getting the hostages out, or even taking action to get them out, so it wasnt in the democrats interest for the US people to even know there were US hostages.
  
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  May 13, 2025 10:09am
  - Culture War Criminal
    
    Since the 1960s, the US has given Israel almost unconditional military, diplomatic and political aid regardless of whether it’s a Democrat or a Repulican in the White House. Yes, Democrat admins probably give peffornative token resistance to the incessant demands of the Israel Lobby, but that’s only a sop to a portion of their votes. Biden was only too happy to underwrite and supply the Israelis’ onslaught against Gaza for a year and a bit before leaving office, to be replaced by Zion Don.
    
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    May 13, 2025 1:07pm
- RoboRob
  
  Good for Trump on getting hostages out. However HUGE (or is that Ugggge in Trumpese) fail on accepting the bribe of a Jet from Quatar. The fact that the Jet is the US governments while Trump is president and then moves to the Trump library is clearly a bribe designed to skirt the law.
  
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  May 13, 2025 10:11am
  - kowtow
    
    Agree.
    Qatar is a very strange bedfellow and no friend of the west or Israel.
    
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    May 13, 2025 11:18am
    - Culture War Criminal
      
      Israel is a very strange bedfellow for the United States too, and is only explained by the significant “donations” given to US politicians by the Israel Lobby.
      
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      May 13, 2025 1:12pm
  - Ghost
    
    Trump has compared taking the plane to a gimme putt In golf
    
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    May 13, 2025 11:32am
    - Northshoredoc
      
      Agree with Trump on this – say thank you very much and take the freebie, it’ll save some US taxpayer money.
      
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      May 13, 2025 12:27pm
      - Ghost
        
        No, it’s a bad look. It will not save the US money. The plane will have to be altered to suit the job and unlike Air Force one will be used for a couple of years then retired. This isn’t going to stop the replacement of Air Force one, that program will still go ahead for that replacement.
        
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        May 13, 2025 12:49pm
      - RoboRob
        
        As Ghost, rightly says, this doesn’t save the US any money. It does however mean that when trump leaves office, his presidential library which he controls, will have a plane that Trump can use for whatever he wants. Its a really bad look and if Biden was doing it we would be all over it too.
        
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        May 13, 2025 1:19pm
      - All_on_Red
        
        FGS Trump already has a Boeing 757 which he has had refurbished to like brand new- along with a Citation X and a couple of S76 Helicopters.
        Its not going to any Library- thats fake news.
        I see Boeing, who are embarrassed by all this, have now moved delivery forward to 2027. It was supposed to be 2020 and then they said 2029-2030
        And as for saving money, Boeing want $3.9 BILLION for the two new 747s…
        Perhaps all of this was a gambit to get Boeing to hurry up
        
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        May 13, 2025 1:35pm
      - Ghost
        
        Donald trump “ it would go directly to the library after I leave office”
        
        https://youtube.com/shorts/8bsFdoEju38?si=05ViwqN8rW5cCgu6
        
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        May 13, 2025 1:41pm
      - All_on_Red
        
        FFS
        From your link
        He said library ‘after its decommissioned’
        Decommissioned means no longer used.
        He was asked directly whether he would use it and said NO
        That is the salient point. He wont use it. Not to the ‘library for his use’.
        After it decommissioned he would probably put it on display.
        Like the guy in St Heliers with a Sea Harrier in his back yard.
        
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        May 13, 2025 2:02pm
      - All_on_Red
        
        [Mod – now try again without your usual snark]
        
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        May 13, 2025 2:07pm
- AitchW
  
  Did I hear a report that the US has stuck two fingers up to the UN and is co-ordinating its own aid programme to Gaza using private contractors?
  Hopefully they can actually get all of tha aid to where it’s meant to go, not into Hamas warehouses!
  Or UNWRA staff pockets….
  
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  May 13, 2025 10:44am
  - Ra Henare
    
    Get your hearing checked.
    https://apnews.com/article/gaza-aid-distribution-israel-hamas-8417c39884394656fd5328d4aebdad64
    
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    May 13, 2025 5:32pm
- Northshoredoc
  
  There seems to have been a reasonable amount of coverage since Trump has been voted in.
  
  Even in the left-leaning publications.
  
  https://www.nytimes.com/search?query=edan+alexander
  
  https://www.washingtonpost.com/search/?query=edan+alexander
  
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  May 13, 2025 10:48am
  - Ghost
    
    There was coverage under Biden as well.
    
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    May 13, 2025 10:50am
- imalwaysright
  
  [Mod – debate the topic]
  
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  May 13, 2025 10:50am
  - imalwaysright
    
    [Mod – debate the topic, we don’t need a running commentary on how many votes a post has, or your abuse directed at those whose votes you don’t like]
    
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    May 13, 2025 11:39am
- Dudley Quaffquaff
  
  Yeah nah. Yes, it’s good for the hostage and his family. But I’m withholding judgement until it’s clear what Trump has committed the US, or more probably Israel, to paying for his moment of favour
  
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  May 13, 2025 10:53am
  - All_on_Red
    
    Its a Conspiracy!!!!!
    Lol
    
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    May 13, 2025 1:39pm
artemisia

Mob leader had $75,000 cash seized from bedroom at rehab facility

Mr Karetu was on bail on a 24 hour curfew at the rehab facility until sentenced to prison in February this year. Perhaps rehabilitation was underway but $75k under the mattress suggests not so much. It does raise questions about Grace Foundation though, like more interested in income as a bail address than rehab?

And not the only rehab facility reported recently with residents hiding drugs in quantity.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360685972/mob-leader-had-75000-cash-seized-bedroom-rehab-facility
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May 13, 2025 8:12am
- cmm
  
  Does anyone really believe that $75k is the last of his stash?
  
  Grace is a 500 bed facility that deals mainly with people with a criminal past. There is no way they can monitor all these people with the small staff they have and without running the place like a prison.
  
  Your tax dollars at work.
  
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  May 13, 2025 8:23am
  - artemisia
    
    Agree, but what is their rehabilitation success rate? Including recidivism for those on bail and parole. They report 6% but over what period as looks like breaches while there.
    
    Believe most there are on benefits and pay a weekly fee.
    
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    May 13, 2025 8:53am
    - David Garrett
      
      Art: I assume the reference to 6% is either a typo, or you mean 6% reoffend – which would make it the best performing rehabilitation program anywhere in the world.
      
      And good to see you highlighting the period within which there is no reoffending. One could construct a program in which there was zero reoffending for a week or even a year given enough staff and resources
      
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      May 13, 2025 9:11am
      - cmm
        
        Maybe 6% offend while they are actually in the unit.
        
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        May 13, 2025 10:06am
    - cmm
      
      “Believe most there are on benefits and pay a weekly fee”
      
      I am 100% sure a weekly fee doesn’t come anywhere near covering the costs.
      
      Based on their list of “partners” our wallets are heavily involved.
      
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      May 13, 2025 10:06am
  - MCōs
    
    Here’s an article on the Grace Foundation
    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/kahu/inside-new-zealands-biggest-rehabilitation-service-the-grace-foundation/QXVXVPCG7ZDY5IBKQMKKQE4J4A/
    
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    May 13, 2025 8:57am
    - artemisia
      
      Yeah, I read that. Seemed carefully curated, couple of mild nods to failures.
      
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      May 13, 2025 10:10am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    How easy is it to hide an AK-47?
    
    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/auckland-bail-facilities-under-scrutiny-after-raid-finds-drugs-ak-47-and-ammo-again/4SVZMQALUNBT7L6N2XFBGHVTKI/
    
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    May 13, 2025 9:03am
    - MCōs
      
      “Corrections and Police Minister Mark Mitchell — who railed against bail facilities when he was an Opposition MP — says his views have not changed and he will have “more to say on this in the new year”.”
      I don’t recall what he said? Maybe the government is going to create a Ministry of Bail Facilities and nationalization the whole operation or scrap bail altogether
      
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      May 13, 2025 9:27am
      - David Garrett
        
        MCos: You can bet your arse they have no intention of scrapping bail altogether.
        
        On one thing I do agree with the lefties: remand times in this country are waaay too long. Many countries require quite short periods between arraignment and trial…as short as 90 days in some US states. In Scotland its 120 days I believe
        
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        May 13, 2025 9:45am
      - cmm
        
        DG: Certainly remand is far too long. There seems to be little reason why they couldn’t schedule more court times (even using night courts) and clearing the backlog.
        
        The other thing would be proper sentences so that fewer people choose to become customers of the courts.
        
        Still, the vast majority of people held in prison on remand are going to end up convicted anyway then get time off for remand served. Therefore it doesn’t really swell the prison population.
        
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        May 13, 2025 10:14am
      - G the giant from Dunedin
        
        Straight to da clink
        
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        May 13, 2025 10:25am
      - David Garrett
        
        cmm: Yes…criminal defence lawyers i have known estimate that less than 5% of offenders remanded in custody are eventually found Not guilty. That doesnt alter the fact that for those few % remand times are far too long. Justice delayed is justice denied as the old saying goes.
        
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        May 13, 2025 11:16am
    - Jack5
      
      😲Does Mr-Dr Wassilieff know Mrs-Dr Wassilieff is asking how easy it is to hide an AK47 assault rifle?
      
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      May 13, 2025 5:57pm
- kowtow
  
  Why didn’t they include his tribal affiliation…….
  
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  May 13, 2025 9:09am
David Garrett

And good morning again from the Kingdom…very cool here this am…the heat broken at last hopefully
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May 13, 2025 8:12am
- cmm
  
  But no Canterbury frost yet – I presume :-).
  
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  May 13, 2025 8:18am
  - David Garrett
    
    cmm; no frost up here mate! Gets down to maybe 15 at night in the middle of “winter”
    
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    May 13, 2025 8:24am
- Ra Henare
  
  Siem Reap a cool 27 this morning.
  The temperature I love.
  
  Another reason I prefer Cambodia to Thailand.
  NO COINS in Cambodia, huge number of ferking coins in Thailand.
  A gazillion ATMs in Cambodia. Not so many in Thailand.
  Both have digital payment.
  Usually using QR codes.
  
  Cambodian growth expected to hit 8% next year.
  Thailand, hovering around 2.5%
  NZ MINUS 1.1%
  
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  May 13, 2025 5:38pm
Sarge

Despite the recent Pay Equity reversal, it’s Brooke’s Pay Deductions for Partial Strikes bill that’s arguably worse.

I have no issue with Pay Deductions for ‘strikes’ in how most people think of them — if you don’t work to your contract, you shouldn’t get paid. This is what most of ACT’s talking points focussed on!

However, it includes penalties for Work-to-Rule actions. This means that people who follow their contracts *exactly* (as part of a strike action), face a 10% deduction in wages. Don’t volunteer for overtime? Pay deduction. Don’t pick up the extra shift? Pay deduction.

No one should be penalised for following their contract, and I’ve yet to hear a reason why Work to Rule should be included.
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May 13, 2025 8:13am
- cmm
  
  “No one should be penalised for following their contract.”
  Because work to rule is just as bad as striking.
  
  Do you really want to live in a world where people need 500 page contracts to explicitly spell out every detail?
  
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  May 13, 2025 10:16am
  - Sarge
    
    Bit of a strawman/goal post shift there…
    
    Brooke’s bill penalises people (who as part of a strike action), turns down actions listed as voluntarily in their CEA.
    
    I take your point that some clauses can be vague/open to interpretation. But:
    
    * That’s not reason to penalise explicitly optional clauses (as Brooke is doing)
    * There are existing ways to deal with this other than “Workers lose 10% of their pay”. No one’s made a case that these existing ways were failing.
    
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    May 13, 2025 10:30am
  - AitchW
    
    You really can’t penalise someone for complying with their contract. (Even though work to rule is a wet dream for cloth cap unionists)
    
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    May 13, 2025 10:46am
  - imalwaysright
    
    Cmm
    Sarge and,apparently, the bill are saying that duties beyond those contracted will be treated as duties within the contract.
    
    That’s the problem.
    
    An employer’s request for services outside the employment agreement could then be used as a threat to reduce the employees income.
    That is definitely onerous.
    
    A 500 page contract is meaningless when an employer can unilaterally write page 501.
    
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    May 13, 2025 11:09am
cmm

We will know that National is succeeding when we see a massive down swing in the number of people leaving the country.

The latest Labour smear campaign saying that nurses and other government workers are getting a pay cut might not be true, but I doubt they think they will be getting a meaningful pay increase either.

I would be very surprised if we see a shift towards keeping people in NZ.
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May 13, 2025 8:15am
- kowtow
  
  We’re still very much dealing with the consequences of Peters annointing Ardern and their disasterous Administration .
  
  Including the oil and gas ban that both Peters and Jones were party to.And that’s just the item at the top of a long list of appalling decisions they made.
  
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  May 13, 2025 8:31am
  - Jack5
    
    The flow from New Zealand depends as much on the faster economic growth of Australia as it does on NZ’s economy.
    
    Australia has the 20th biggest GDP in the world, but is lagging at 98th in GDP growth rate. NZ is 174th. This is of the 261 entities recognised as countries by the CIA World Factbook.
    
    Australia is still picking up steam in its development as a resource-rich, climate-diverse continent.
    
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    May 13, 2025 1:06pm
- rockape
  
  Nurses latest pay offer 1% plus 1% next year. Their pay equity agreement being eroded already.
  
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  May 13, 2025 8:41am
  - MCōs
    
    The government needs all the money to pour into a bottomless pit in the insatiable Cook Strait
    https://www.transpower.co.nz/hvdc-upgrade
    
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    May 13, 2025 9:18am
    - RoboRob
      
      Transpower should be funding that itself, from the money it takes to maintain the lines. Has Transpower not been putting money asside for that last 50years for this known cost?
      
      Sounds like Wellingtons water, spend the money you take for maintenance and then beg for government bailouts.
      
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      May 13, 2025 9:25am
    - peterwn
      
      Get your facts straight, mate. This project will not cost the Government anything. Transpower will meet the cost from its depreciation reserves and will borrow as needed to meet cash flows. If the project does not proceed the HVDC scheme will slowly but surely die and alternative generation and transmission will be needed to meet the absence of the link. Indeed if you read Transpower’s papers on this (they are in the public domain) Transpower has outlined alternative options and impacts and if a better alternative is identified then Transpower would abandon the HVDC cables and run with the alternative.
      Also Transpower’s identified proposal would also face external scrutiny from the Electricity Authority and the Commerce Commission. However it would be fair to say that cable replacement is the hot favourite and other runners are unlikely to topple it.
      
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      May 13, 2025 9:44am
      - Jack5
        
        Remember when Transpower sold the South Island grid to American financiers in a leaseback deal?
        
        Both the NZ Government and the Americans were left wondering if they owned it.
        
        I hope Government auditors and politicians have kept a close eye on Transpower since then.
        
        https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/2964941/Transpower-buys-its-way-out-of-controversial-deal-with-US-firm
        
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        May 13, 2025 1:18pm
    - Ian
      
      Great chance for those of us in the South Island to free ourselves of shackles to the North Island!
      
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      May 13, 2025 10:35am
      - NeverMindTheBollocks
        
        Bear in mind Ian, that the power flows both ways.
        
        Be careful what you wish for.
        
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        May 13, 2025 8:31pm
    - cmm
      
      Far from a “bottomless pit”.
      
      The HVDC link is relatively low cost for all the flexibility it adds to the grid and how it allows generation to be optimised.
      
      The link operates close to 100% of the time either shunting power Northwards or Southwards. Without it our hydro system would be much more brittle and North Island would need to build another GW of coal or gas generation.
      
      https://www.transpower.co.nz/system-operator/live-system-and-market-data/consolidated-live-data
      
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      May 13, 2025 10:51am
      - MCōs
        
        The cable is just an example of how the strait sucks up billions of dollars that caught my attention on Monday’s news.
        If, as Abel Tasman guessed, there was no strait an awful lot of money would have been saved over the years and various ships wouldn’t have come to grief.
        
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        May 13, 2025 9:30pm
  - RoboRob
    
    Its a pay ‘offer’, its not what they are actually getting.
    
    When you bargain you ask higher then you want and the employer offers lower then they are willing to go. You then counter and hopefully meet in the middle.
    
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    May 13, 2025 9:22am
    - Ian Boag
      
      Sometimes (!) one party or the other will slow things down by simply not getting on with the negotiations. Gummint has form in this area. SMO negotiations have apparently been going on for most of two years …
      
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      May 13, 2025 11:36am
- Simon
  
  NZ is finished. Steady decline its built in. How can it be reversed? Net Zero, retiring boomers, low wage mass immigration, falling out with China, invasive govt departments, GAE in decline, huge indebted private sector, over taxation but can’t run surpluses, crime culture, speculative & rent seeking economy, & Maorification. On all fronts it’s failing.
  
  And that’s with a supposedly centre right govt who are just all washed out after 2 yrs.
  
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  May 13, 2025 8:45am
  - kowtow
    
    ‘falling out with China’
    
    That’s winning.
    
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    May 13, 2025 9:32am
  - Ian Boag
    
    over taxation but can’t run surpluses
    
    Haven’t we just had some fairly significant tax cuts?
    
    speculative & rent seeking economy
    
    To be fair, nothing new here
    
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    May 13, 2025 10:28am
    - Damocles11
      
      Did we? If you weren’t a landlord or someone with a tribe of kids then I think you would have got diddly squat.
      
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      May 13, 2025 12:16pm
  - Damocles11
    
    Exactly right. This is just ‘managed decline’. The country is effectively paralysed and far too socialist to get anywhere. Necessary reforms will therefore never happen. All we see is some tinkering on the margins, usually on behalf of vested interests.
    
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    May 13, 2025 12:15pm
    - Culture War Criminal
      
      Yip. Gloomy, but true. Better to acdept it and act accordingly than to deny it and keep acting how you always have.
      
      As was always inevitable, the liberal democratic west is collapsing under the burden of its own contradictions, economic, social, demographic and otherwise. People can see this, even though we are assured it isn’t the case.
      
      There’s no coming back, the only questions are how low it will go, how much more the parasites can extract before it goes belly up, and what coming out the other side will look like. This is why I don’t vote and see “party politics” as mostly a quaint relic of better times. It’s hollow and performative like so much else.
      
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      May 13, 2025 1:28pm
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  Rubbish, it took Key well into the second term to slow the people leaving this country. It will take a long time to fix the mess so people feel happier to stay home again, I do note year on year at the end of Feb the numbers had dropped slightly, so when you hear media saying it is rising, they are lying
  
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  May 13, 2025 10:28am
  - Damocles11
    
    What did Key do? UNDRIP and the flag referendum wasn’t it?
    
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    May 13, 2025 5:36pm
Simon

Wellington Clown Show infighting getting spicy. The stakes could not be lower.
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May 13, 2025 8:30am
kowtow

Extra , extra !

Don’t read about it!

Herald (print version today) Adam Pearse “Labour cuts van Velden Nazi image”

No mention of Vance’s C’Gate.

Oddly enough there’s been no long series of Doyle stories either ………he’s a cult member , the Green one , but as he’s not a Nat , nothing to see here.
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May 13, 2025 8:36am
Rusty

Mass power outage on the London underground yesterday.
There is always a logical explanation for these accidents.
Expect more of these logical accidents to happen around the western world.
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May 13, 2025 8:40am
- Lance
  
  Quite right. A sub-system (brief) failure is now part of a vast conspiracy.
  //
  
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  May 13, 2025 9:14am
sirknz

Stuff is still trying to make the totally important and not made up holiday that nobody ever heard of prior to 2018 that is Matariki a thing. Today’s story is about a Fijian woman who gave up booze and cigarettes and kava that is somehow related to something akin to a New Year’s resolution.
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May 13, 2025 8:52am
- pdm
  
  sirk. I have no idea when the `(another) `Maori Day Off” is for Matariki but isn’t it usually in June or July because it is a `moving thing’?
  
  Stuff are starting bloody early with the bullshit about it.
  
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  May 13, 2025 9:17am
  - kowtow
    
    Another brilliant , inspired , world beating Ardernism.
    
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    May 13, 2025 9:36am
  - David Garrett
    
    Pdm: Because it is – just like Easter- a “moving thing”, claims that it marks some special point for planting kumera – in six weeks time or some such – is total crap.
    
    There is quite a bit of historical evidence that the Maori noted the appearance of the Constellation they call Matariki, but there is zero evidence that it prompted any kind of celebration – until 10 or 15 years ago.
    
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    May 13, 2025 9:51am
  - cmm
    
    Matariki seems to be growing.
    
    First it was a superstitious mark for planting kumara.
    
    Then it became a celebration of “Maori science”.
    
    Now it is becoming a spiritual day when ancestors are remembered and revered.
    
    Hey, if you’re making shit up you may as well go big or go home.
    
    https://www.stuff.co.nz/te-ao-maori/360684375/matariki-hunga-nui-remembrance-honouring-those-we-have-lost
    
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    May 13, 2025 11:10am
    - greybeard
      
      Matariki ? Matarubbish.
      
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      May 13, 2025 11:17am
      - imalwaysright
        
        Maori were apparently feuding groups spread around the country who spoke different dialects of their language.
        
        Was there a common ground of science and astronomy that the preservation of which took precedence to the feudalism and was accorded a path to instillment in the minds of upcoming generations?
        
        Probably not.
        
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        May 13, 2025 12:01pm
    - AitchW
      
      Pfft. Just another day where employers pay their staff to stay home. And then said staff have to catch up on the work not done on Matariki. (Is it a coincidence that Matariki is an anagram of Tamariki?)
      Yet another example where Jacinda was kind and the productive sector had to pay for her kindness.
      Worst PM and worst government EVER!!! (Until we get a Labour/Green/Maori government….)
      
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      May 13, 2025 11:32am
      - kowtow
        
        More like takinthemiki.
        
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        May 13, 2025 12:41pm
Quail

ACT ‘s representative Nicole McKee is a great example of a politician doing her best to implement the pre election promise of a review of the new firearm laws.
Well done Ms Mckee!
Not too much to ask for I would have thought, particularly given the National party’s alleged commitment to “ predator free NZ.”
In passing the Gun registration is likely to be the same failure it’s been off shore .
It seems it is very difficult to collate the registration numbers accurately , particularly with an unwilling client base.
I will give National credi for one thing though , they are very good at passing Labour iniated law .
And kicking Rural NZ in the process!
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May 13, 2025 9:05am
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  They had a review, she wants another review cause she didn’t like the first outcome, stop wasting money they say
  
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  May 13, 2025 10:30am
- cmm
  
  I am not too fussed with firearm registration – that’s what they had in South Africa when I lived there.
  
  It means that every firearm is registered to a person and is tracked. Just like many other things in life: cars, phones, etc. In South Africa you could only buy ammunition for firearms that you own too. Want to buy .22 ammo – show a .22 license.
  
  The only valid argument against firearm registration is that this can potentially give gangs a shopping list.
  
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  May 13, 2025 10:40am
  - Ian Boag
    
    From what I have seen of it, the signup process is a bit sub-optimal. Make and model of firearm is picked off a list with no “other” category available. Bits of firearms (eg rifle bolts, receivers, spare magazines etc) are also supposed to go on the register except they don’t have serial numbers ….
    
    I would have thought name, fireams licence #, maybe address where firearm is securely stored, make/model/serial# of weapon plus a couple of photos should cover it.
    
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    May 13, 2025 10:59am
  - kowtow
    
    ‘Just like many other things in life: cars, phones, etc. ‘
    
    “Full” registration of cars has done sfa to prevent vehicle related offending . Mobile phone use while driving is at epidemic proportions , and funnily enough there’s a law against that ( not to mention common sense) and it makes not a jot of difference .
    
    Dogs are licensed , and seemingly never been so out of control.
    
    I see from the police website the registeris also designed to or claimed to make their staff safer , as they’ll know when attending a house if there’s a licensee or firearms there . But surely that would be available to them under the old system and in any event I’d suggest cold lead to a sense of false safety ,if staffattending a house that is shown to not be “firearmed” , could that lead to a degree of complacency , afterall it’s not licensed folk who’re the danger , it’s the almost by defintion the unlicensed people in possession who’d be more dangerous.
    
    As an aside I see a teenager was killed by knife attack in Napier over the weekend and now some charcter is on an attempt murder charge , crossbow .
    
    Do we fully register all knives and crossbows now.
    
    btw I support any and all lawful and sensible measures that keep police and public safe.
    
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    May 13, 2025 11:51am
  - Keith White
    
    “A former police officer who admitted illegally accessing the police database to leak information to an organised criminal group has been sentenced to 2 years and 2 months in jail.
    
    “Vili Mahe Taukolo, 31, previously admitted accessing the police’s National Intelligence Application (NIA) for a dishonest purpose between February 2018 and March.
    
    Actually, he did it to get paid by criminals.
    
    He did not serve a full sentence.
    
    And he’s not the only one that has daone and will do this sort of thing, much as Union Man Cahill would want us to think so.
    
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    May 13, 2025 1:53pm
  - Local Miller
    
    I take it you left SA before they started revoking all those licenses and making people return their firearms.
    
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    May 13, 2025 3:48pm
- Tom Hunter
  
  When the firearms legislation was updated in 1983 it was actually the Police who recommended dumping the old gun registry and moving to tracking the gun owners.
  
  My dad, an ex-cop, wasn’t too happy about that until he talked to one of his old mates who’d just retired, who explained that the registry had become so filled with false data and errors that it was practically useless.
  
  That was due to GIGO and moving from paper-based filing cabinets to computers is not going to help, as the Canadian Mounties have discovered.
  
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  May 13, 2025 11:00am
  - Quail
    
    TH,
    That was one of the problems and will happen again. Confusion with serial numbers, partial numbers , incorrect prefix’s, perhaps even wilful incorrect numbers will likely create a real mess .
    In my father’s day purchase of a firearm required first a permit to purchase from Police after which the gun was taken to the local Police station for a safety inspection and identification of owner and gun . A paper certificate was then issued with the firearm.This process took several days.
    Years later a Lifetime licence was issued to responsible gun owners.
    Now the licence process is a 20 page application( can be done online) document with recourse to an independent referee, not in the same family.
    Spouses are interviewed as is the applicant by an “independent contractor “as to the applicant’s suitability.The contractor visits the home to inspect the storage facilities to ensure security of the firearms is up to specifications.That usually means appropriate safes bolted to a structural wall.
    Then there is the application fee: $126.50.Plus registration of firearms above.
    The problem is with all this is the one week a year hunter will say “ to hell with it I will cash in my firearms and holiday in Bali’. Likewise elderly and city hunters.Not cost effective.
    These new regulations will go a long way to destroying the sport ( and business )in NZ .It will do nothing for Predator and Pest control
    And then there will be a new Ministry of Pest Destruction formed with their own Government hunters armed to the teeth plus pouring out tons of 1080 / vertebrate poisons to control pests ,
    And yet another tax to pay for that service.
    
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    May 13, 2025 1:36pm
- [email protected]
  
  True. “ask Canada how their registry went. After some 15 years and over $1 BILLION spent, they scrapped the system. It cost far too much to run, was highly inaccurate, and did not help law enforcement in any way.”
  
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  May 13, 2025 11:00am
Maggy Wassilieff

Philip Crump provides 6 reasons as to why folks have stopped reading MSM news

https://breakingviewsnz.blogspot.com/2025/05/philip-crump-nzmes-new-chapter-and-six.html

He forgets to mention that many of us will no longer pay $$$ to read opinion pieces that are just repetitive versions of F***ing N@@@ C^^^.
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May 13, 2025 9:52am
- Chuck Bird
  
  I will be going to the AGM on 3 June. It should be interesting.
  
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  May 13, 2025 10:47am
  - Jack5
    
    Individual shareholers, the tradition Mum and Dad investors, ahead of the annual meeting should look at the rules in the voting section (number 19 onwards) in the NZME constitution. I’ve put a link below to the constitution at the Companies Register.
    
    Point 26 sets out rules for a poll. Proxy details seem to begin around point 33, but read the whole thing.
    
    https://app.companiesoffice.govt.nz/companies/app/service/services/documents/8EDDD331DA2F876B71894F6D6CD88172
    
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    May 13, 2025 11:50am
    - Jack5
      
      DG at 10.21 shows extreme modesty.
      
      “…thing i noticed … “
      
      Surely Tonga doesn’t require this of all Ppalangi?
      
      Yes, I know, your slip is miniscule compared with my “shareholers” in my 11.50 post.🙃
      
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      May 13, 2025 11:59am
    - Chuck Bird
      
      Thanks.
      
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      May 13, 2025 1:15pm
rangitoto

Kiril Budak awaits the arrival of Vladimir Putin in Istanbul – https://x.com/Ksenia18370214/status/1921993190501998640
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May 13, 2025 10:16am
David Garrett

Maggy: the first thing i noticed about that piece by Mr Crump was the complete absence of errors. A tad long winded though perhaps?
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May 13, 2025 10:21am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  A tad long winded though perhaps?
  
  Well, he is a lawyer……
  
  But, yes, a welcome addition to the NZ Herald Editorial Board.
  
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  May 13, 2025 10:38am
  - David Garrett
    
    Maggs: LOL…long winded lawyers are largely creatures of the past, particularly in appellate courts, where short submissions – sometimes specified in maximum page numbers – are now the norm.
    
    In US appellate courts the length of oral subs is also strictly prescribed- 20 minutes in the US Supreme Court IIRC.
    
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    May 13, 2025 11:25am
  - Jack5
    
    Would you buy a newspaper dominated by an editorial board with a lot of lawyers?
    
    It would likely bore readers shitless.
    
    Lawyers are for helping journo’s dodge libel. 🧐
    
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    May 13, 2025 12:49pm
    - Ghost
      
      So no different than the current msm that bores the shit out of people as it is?
      
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      May 13, 2025 12:56pm
      - Jack5
        
        Ghost, they’re trying to restart the NZ Herald motor.
        
        From an investor point of view the question is whether it can be fixed.
        
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        May 13, 2025 1:11pm
Chuck Bird

The result of the Liberal Party’s choice of leader and deputy leader in Oz should be interesting.
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May 13, 2025 10:44am
cmm

A lot of people are losing their minds over the Qatar gift of a new Airforce One.

Yes, there certainly should be some consideration for what this means in terms of back scratching and potential security issues etc, but this would not be a first.

Airforce One’s major function is as a symbol of USA power/prestige etc. That is its major function ahead of transport.

In 1886, the French gave USA the Statue of Liberty – one of the greatest symbols of American identity. Who lost their mind over that?

What’s the difference?
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May 13, 2025 11:00am
- AitchW
  
  The Statue of Liberty didn’t transfer to the president of the day when his term was up.
  And ya can’t fly from Florida to Qatar on the Statue of Liberty…
  
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  May 13, 2025 11:14am
  - Stu2
    
    Nor could the president sell it
    
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    May 13, 2025 12:24pm
  - cmm
    
    “The Statue of Liberty didn’t transfer to the president of the day”
    From what I gather, and I could be wrong here, Airforce One belongs to the Airforce. Not the president of the day.
    
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    May 13, 2025 1:31pm
    - AitchW
      
      To be pedantic, Air Force 1 is the call sign of whatever Plane the president is on. When he catches a chopper from the White House lawn it’s Marine 1.
      Having said that, my understanding is that the Qatari plane will be on loan to the airforce, then will be given to Trump’s presidential library once his term is over.
      I could be wrong….
      
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      May 13, 2025 1:55pm
- Tom Hunter
  
  The latest “chemtrail” theory about Trump
  
  I’m going to try one last time.
  
  The Qatar B-747 was built in the US by Boeing. They are offering a newer 747 to replace one of the two current AF-1s that have been flying for 40 years. Which are tired and need to be replaced. The wing based at Andrews has also purchased aircraft from other countries in the past which are currently flying our VP and senior government officials. This is NOT new.
  
  Qatar is offering the jet to the US military, not Donald Trump. The DOD contractor is based in the US, in fact my dad (a retired Air Force general) used to work for them. They are, not unironically, also working to upgrade the FAA technology as we speak. You know, Newark and elsewhere. They will get the aircraft and perform all of the security and the installation of the systems that AF-1 requires to safely move our president around the world. Not the Qatari’s. And you and I will pay for that but not the $400 million the 747 would normally cost. I could tell you exactly what is required to modify the AF-1 for safe flight but that is Top Secret and I’d have to kill you.
  
  This AF-1 will serve the sitting president, whether they be Republican or Democrat until Boeing gets their shit together to complete the new, upcoming improved 747s that started under Obama, was renegotiated under Trump, and was completely ignored by the Biden administration. It’s looking like 2029 to 2030 for delivery at the soonest.
  
  I love X but sometimes the “sky is falling” conspiracy crap grows tiresome. A little knowledge goes a long way. Having flown on the current AF-1s 100 hundred times, I have intimate knowledge.
  
  Now, come at me about “chemtrails.” 🤣
  
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  May 13, 2025 12:25pm
  - All_on_Red
    
    Some of the people here are REALLY gullible for fake news- especially if it feeds their ‘Orange Man Bad’
    Or maybe just low IQ?
    
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    May 13, 2025 12:50pm
  - AitchW
    
    Ah chemtrails. The gift that keeps giving! The amount of hysteria on X at the moment about the gossamer flying round currently (like it does about this time every year) is enormously entertaining.
    Oh, and black left eyes too….
    
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    May 13, 2025 1:50pm
- RoboRob
  
  The difference is that USA kept the statue of liberty but in 3.5yrs Trump gets to keep the plane (part of his presidential library). So one is given to a country the other given to a man.
  
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  May 13, 2025 1:28pm
Ghost

A little bit more info on this case.

Pornography found on the work computer of former deputy commissioner Jevon McSkimming is being investigated as alleged objectionable material, RNZ understands.

Article
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May 13, 2025 11:47am
- AitchW
  
  Surely this is an employment matter. Media are printing lots of allegations, but no-one would be so stupid as to release any details until the criminal investigation is over and all of the legal matters have been ticked off.
  Until then the media will have to wait, and asking the PM or anyone else the same question over and over won’t change that.
  
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  May 13, 2025 11:56am
  - cmm
    
    If it is objectionable material (eg. extreme or kiddy porn) rather than just good old five-knuckle-shuffle porn then that could end up being criminal rather than just an employment issue.
    
    Oh dear what a poor choice!
    
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    May 13, 2025 1:39pm
    - All_on_Red
      
      The mind boggles at someone being so stupid they look at porn on ……….a Police Computer!!!
      
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      May 13, 2025 2:12pm
      - David Garrett
        
        All on: Quite so…but reassuring that someone in the police “service” had the balls to bust someone presumably much their senior.
        
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        May 13, 2025 2:19pm
      - Colville
        
        This guy was already suspended for getting handsy with a young female staffer so this is just an additional nail in the coffin of his career.
        
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        May 13, 2025 2:37pm
      - rouppe
        
        @David it would have been found as part of the original complaint would have been examining his laptop and phone.
        
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        May 13, 2025 3:00pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        The silly thing is that if he had just hotspotted off a non-police phone when on the relevant sites, (I think .. ) the sites accessed and the actual traffic would not have shown up on his police network traffic log …. ?
        
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        May 13, 2025 4:04pm
  - Keith White
    
    It’s not an employment matter if he has pornographic material on a taxpayer-supplied computer and when he’s supposed to work catching criminals not beating his meat.
    
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    May 13, 2025 1:49pm
bennerg

AP reports

Trump administration welcomes 59 white South Africans as refugees

https://apnews.com/article/south-africa-us-refugees-trump-afrikaners-16e34760b93cfa66f15b4cd8380743c1

Are we missing out on a valuable resource here?

Farming skills, self supporting and not to mention adding to our rugby gene pool.
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May 13, 2025 11:47am
- imalwaysright
  
  Bennerg
  
  NZ seems to have a history of being asleep at the wheel when valuable immigrants are up for grabs:
  Hong Kong when it was assumed by China.
  Britain when Starmer was elected.
  The rest of the world when the covid scam was on.
  Europe during the Ukraine scam.
  
  Instead, NZ puts established qualified professionals through the bureaucratic and financial wringer before deeming them acceptable to the country.
  
  Meanwhile our locals can fail at every level of their pathetic existence and the government will pick up the tab…
  
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  May 13, 2025 12:14pm
  - Taieri
    
    Europe during the Ukraine scam
    ————-
    
    Ukraine scam. An interesting way of describing the war, which so far has killed a several hundred thousands of people and destroyed a country.
    
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    May 13, 2025 2:12pm
    - kowtow
      
      I see reports that the Russian side is approaching one million killed /wounded military casualties .Suspect Ukrainian numbers would be similar .
      
      The human tragedy to appease a little dictator’s ambitions and his Kremlin kleptocrat pals is shocking.
      
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      May 13, 2025 3:07pm
    - imalwaysright
      
      Yes Taieri,
      The scams these days don’t care how many are murdered as long as the money flow is unimpeded. Its evil and disgusting, and it is a scam.
      
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      May 13, 2025 4:04pm
- cmm
  
  These farming skills will almost certainly be grain/maize farming.
  
  Do we have a shortage of large scale, commercial grain farmers in NZ? Probably not.
  
  In South Africa every one of those farmers feeds on average 3000 people. That picture represents about 60,000 empty bellies.
  
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  May 13, 2025 1:44pm
  - bennerg
    
    cmm, I’m sure their skills are transferable, or they are able to introduce us to methods we have hitherto not employed.
    
    One aspect of diversity we can accept.
    
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    May 13, 2025 7:20pm
Damocles11

$100 million of taxpayer money flowing out in corporate welfare as the State tries to ‘pick winners’. 🤦🏻‍♂️

‘The finance minister, Nicola Willis, has promised $100 million to the Government’s venture capital fund, Elevate NZ, which supports early stage tech companies with ‘high-growth potential’.’
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May 13, 2025 12:12pm
- mandk
  
  The government will not be picking winners, or any other investment.
  
  All investment funds attempt to pick winners, including your KiwiSaver or other managed fund, if you have one.
  
  Whether Elevate NZ is the best choice is another matter.
  
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  May 13, 2025 1:02pm
  - RoboRob
    
    I think the point is that, like investment funds, they often fail to pick the winners. Do we want the government picking winners with our money or perhaps just getting out of the way and letting businesses succeed or fail on merit.
    
    A prime example was Labours green inovation fund that paid into Solar Zero that is now bust. Should the government be picking solar companies? I think not.
    
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    May 13, 2025 1:31pm
    - Keith White
      
      I think they should be allowed to pick winners, as long as they have to pay the costs when they pick losers.
      
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      May 13, 2025 1:48pm
      - RoboRob
        
        Lol, even the investment firms wont do that!
        
        Your Kiwisaver provider charges its fees regardless of performance. Sure a couple of them dont charge their ‘bonus’ fee if they underperform but those ones have high base fees anyway.
        
        Do you think Willis (for example) would pay out of her own pocket, if she even had that much money.
        
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        May 13, 2025 3:31pm
  - Damocles11
    
    ‘The government will not be picking winners, or any other investment.
    
    All investment funds attempt to pick winners‘
    
    ——
    
    Thanks, that’s as clear as mud. 👍
    
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    May 13, 2025 5:31pm
- cmm
  
  We need Callaghan and Elevate? Why?
  
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  May 13, 2025 1:45pm
  - Keith White
    
    Jobs for the boys, jobs for the girls, jobs for the well-connected, the virtuous need to be able to signal their virtue, so on, so forth.
    
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    May 13, 2025 1:47pm
- cmm
  
  We have Callaghan already. Why do we also need Elevate to do largely the same thing?
  
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  May 13, 2025 2:18pm
  - RoboRob
    
    We dont.
    
    We shouldn’t have either! Sure have a research fund. But for business investment we whould offer (secured) low interest loans at most. No more SolarZero type direct investments or outright handouts.
    
    If the government wasn’t involved in VC there is a chance we could actually have a private venture capital market like the US. I see some KS providers are getting into the game (https://simplicity.kiwi/venture-capital).
    
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    May 13, 2025 3:36pm
  - Damocles11
    
    We don’t. It’s corporate welfare and ‘jobs for the boys’. I’ve been furiously downticked for stating the obvious, safe to say some of ‘the boys’ visit this site.
    
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    May 13, 2025 5:33pm
- Ian Boag
  
  So the good ole DFC lives again 🙂
  
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  May 13, 2025 4:05pm
I remember when

Boy aged five, been at school since start of term.
Has attended pre-school, not kindergarten.
Plays outside but doesn’t paint or draw/write.
Teacher says they have to tell them whether he is left or right handed as they are learning to print.
They think he is right handed, no one in the family is left handed, but he doesn’t show a real preference.
Great verbal skills and seems to be above average for his age.

Why is it so important for this decision to be made immediately?
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May 13, 2025 12:34pm
- RoboRob
  
  Boys develop slower then Girls. Your school / teacher should know this. Many Girls aged 5 have no problems reading but boys ofter struggle and then suddenly when they are 6 it all just comes together. I imagine the same is true for writing.
  
  This is a major issue with primary schooling. The corriculm adn teaching staff are heavily tailored towards what works best for girls. The boys have to take home reading each night and struggle to progress while the girls are moved up the levels and praised.
  
  We have a boy who struggled to read before 6 (now at Uni) and another who was reading from 1.5yrs! He was reading lion witch and the wardrobe for example at about 4. The reader now absolutly hates English (subject) and is a math guru!
  
  I would have thought that just letting your son use whatever hand he wants when he picks up the pencil would be how you identify left / right handed.
  
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  May 13, 2025 1:34pm
  - AitchW
    
    MathS. Americans say math.
    
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    May 13, 2025 1:52pm
  - cmm
    
    Well partially true at least.
    
    Rather than just make it a boys vs girls thing, it is important to recognise that different kids start reading etc at different times. The school system lacks the flexibility to handle that and wants everyone herded along at the same speed. If you’re ahead then they just ignore you. If you’re behind then you’re a problem.
    
    We homeschooled our kids. One son was starting to read before 5 and was highly driven. The other only got interested at age 9 or so.
    
    By the age of 11 both were reading multi-hundred page books and both went on to being avid readers as youths and adults.
    
    Both got into maths at about the standard level for school but progressed faster. One finished off the whole NCEA-level maths syllabus including calculus by age 15 and started doing university level maths.
    
    IMHO one of the worst things you can do is to force a kid into starting to do things before they are ready. This leads to a resentment that ends up being a life-long hate for maths, reading or whatever.
    
    Certainly left and right handedness is far more complex than just picking a side. One guy I worked with in South Africa was left handed when he wrote on a desk but right handed when he wrote on a whiteboard.
    
    Who cares? Let them try both.
    
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    May 13, 2025 2:17pm
    - RoboRob
      
      Agree. I was speaking in generalisations, boys are generally slower at that age.
      
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      May 13, 2025 3:38pm
  - nova
    
    For a long time Sweden started primary school at age 7. This gave the same outcomes by the end of school, and avoided problems with kids who hadn’t acquired the pre-requisite development.
    I personally managed to slip through for quite a while without learning to read, primarily as I could recite the books from memory. It took quite a while for the teachers to pick up on this. My problem was largely left/right development. When I first learnt to write I used either hand as I didn’t know any better. The teachers did encourage the use of the right hand. I recall a family friend trying to help me by saying that if you hold up your left hand, it makes the letter L between you fingers and thumb. I remember trying this, and finding it to be very poor advice, as if you don’t know left from right, a backwards L looks much the same as a forwards L.
    
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    May 13, 2025 3:12pm
- rouppe
  
  Teachers should be able to teach printing for both left and right hand students. It’s just focusing on the wrong thing to say he has to pick a side.
  
  My sister in the 50’s of course was knuckle struck with a steel ruler for using her left hand. She was punished for speaking Dutch.
  
  Of course you don’t hear about that, it was only Maori who were punished.
  
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  May 13, 2025 2:56pm
- Raphael
  
  When I was in my 3rd year of schooling, the school wanted to have me sent to a remedial school because I could not, as a left-hander, write in a straight line on unlined paper, and was writing with my hand all twisted around to try see where I was writing.
  
  My folks got the district school counsellor involved, he told them not to be idiots and give me lined paper, and my folks arranged for me to have lessons to learn how to write as a left-hander (as I was the only southpaw in the family)
  
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  May 13, 2025 3:38pm
Chuck Bird

This is why I have no time for Luxon. National just make stuff up. The audio is just 8 min.

The Country 13/05/25: Jane Smith talks to Jamie Mackay

https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1049-the-country-28628176/
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May 13, 2025 1:46pm
- greybeard
  
  Don’t you just wish that people like Jane Smith and Jamie MacKay were running the country ?
  All of that Paris Accord crap would be gone in minutes.
  Here is something I have posted here previously, on the topic of NZ Governance and the Farming sector:
  
  “I would like to see the following: a new Political Party on the Centre-Right dedicated to promoting the interests, aspirations and activities of the New Zealand Rural sector.
  
  The people generally known by the rest of us as “farmers”, in all of their various permutations.
  
  Add to these “farmers” the hundreds of thousands of other rural workers, horticulturalists, vintners, market gardeners, orchardists, transport operators, rural delivery contractors, many and varied rural and farm contractors, shearers, vets, stock & station companies & agents, motor vehicle dealers, fuel suppliers, fertiliser suppliers, fencing suppliers etc etc.
  And all of their families.
  
  Get all of those people together and there could be a new political party before 2026:
  “The Country Party” – I like the sound of that.”
  
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  May 13, 2025 4:54pm
  - Ghost
    
    No. That would lead to a breach of our free trade agreement with the EU. How do you think New Zealand would cope with trade sanctions from our fourth largest market? The only way we leave the Paris Agreement is after the EU pull out.
    
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    May 13, 2025 6:13pm
  - Chuck Bird
    
    Jane Smith and Groundswell would be good, but they are farmers.
    
    Act and NZF both advocate getting out of Paris. The idea of creating a new party would just waste votes from the right. Look at the election results. No new party came close to 5%.
    
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    May 13, 2025 8:37pm
Keith White

Well, the second most senior policeman in the whole country is being paid by us taxpaying suckers to sit around while on suspension, with two investigations ongoing.

What’s actually worse is that this can happen at all, that the top copper or any cop can have porn on the taxpayer’s computer and the police can’t find it.

High-level management stupidity.

In medicine, when working on work laptops, and doing for example a dermatology presentation and trying to copy and paste images with lots and lots of bare skin (duh, it’s dermatology) I had to apply for and get a written exemption from IT to bypass ‘ZScaler’ and let me access dermatology reference sites because of all the bare skin there, and then I needed similar temp-exemptions to be able to save those documents in Word or into PowerPoint onto a hard drive. We all did.

So the technology exists and is quite cheap and if the Blue Patched Gang aren’t using it then we just paying them to sit around and jerk off. But then what’s new.
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May 13, 2025 1:47pm
Ghost

Home detention for setting a fire that killed someone.

A dying woman’s last words were to ensure the safety of a 12-year-old boy she had taken in, unaware of the fact he set the fatal fire that was to claim her life, a court has heard.

The now 17-year-old boy was sentenced to 12 months’ home detention on Tuesday five years on from the fatal incident in 2020.
….
He then poured petrol on clothing that was placed at the end of the woman’s bed on a wooden stool, and lit the fire as she slept.

He closed the door to the bedroom behind him, and fled to a friend’s house alerting them of the blaze.

Article

Meanwhile, in the uk, 16 youths have now been arrested for the death of Layton Carr

Northumbria Police confirmed that 16 youths, aged 11 to 14, have been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter in connection with the fire and have been released on police bail pending further enquiries.

Article
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May 13, 2025 2:08pm
Hugh Jarse

Slightly off topic from recent posts, but Stuff should now stop referring to Vance as a journalist and the National Affairs Editor and simply refer to her as an opinion writer or Labour Party advocate. Far more accurate term for the work she does, journalist infers some sort of non biased reporting so wildly inaccurate.
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May 13, 2025 2:39pm
Jethrod

Matariki…… ha!
Known as :-
The Pleiades,
The Seven Sisters,
The tiny dipper,
Subaru,
Seven Gurus
Corn Maidens
M45
Vergiliae
The Doves
The Small Hens
Kihima
So not all that special really.
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May 13, 2025 3:58pm
Scooter

Will Andrea Vance apologise to Nicola Willis? I doubt it. At least Jacinda apologised to David Seymour for calling him an “arrogant prick” and her comment wasn’t meant for the public whereas Vance’s was and in writing. Will there be any repercussions, will the Media Council do anything or is hate speech only for a select few?
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May 13, 2025 6:06pm
- AitchW
  
  I think we all know the answer to that Scooter.
  
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  May 13, 2025 6:45pm
Ghost

Duncan Garner NZ’s Top 10 Ministers

An interesting list.
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May 13, 2025 7:43pm
Ghost

Ouch, but so true

An economist from New Zealand’s largest bank said the Labour Government went on a “debt-funded spending spree”, leaving a fiscal mess for the current Government to clean up.

Article
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May 13, 2025 9:26pm

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